Carthage Must Be Destroyed (65 page)

136
Some have assumed that Sid was the founder deity of Sidon (Bernardini 2005, 131), but there is no evidence to support this.

137
Barreca 1969.

138
For the votive inscriptions that they left behind see Fantar 1969.

139
Antas was by no means unique in the Punic world in this respect. The sanctuary to the goddess Astarte at Tas Silg on the island of Malta also clearly witnessed a similar symbiosis with an indigenous female deity.

140
It has been argued that one particularly famous statuette usually identified as Sid is actually of Baal Hammon; however, enough other depictions of Sid exist showing him as a warrior/hunter deity (Amadasi Guzzo 1969, 99).

141
Barreca 1979, 140.

142
De Angelis 2003, 116–18.

143
Thucydides 6.2.6.

144
Ibid. 6.2.2–6.

145
De Angelis 2003, 122—4.

146
Thucydides 6.2.6; Falsone 1995, 674.

147
Despite maintaining trade networks and establishing some new settlements and bolstering some old ones in the region, keeping the Greeks out of southern Spain was not a priority for Carthage. Indeed, the commercial vacuum created by the abandonment of Phoenician trading stations in southern Spain was increasingly filled by Greeks from Phocaea, on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, who had established a colony at Ampurias in north-eastern Spain on what is now the Costa Brava (Dominguez 2002, 72–4).

148
Isserlin & Du Plat Taylor 1974, 50–68; De Angelis 2003, 118–20.

149
De Angelis 2003, 110–11. In less exalted indigenous communities there were also signs of growing prosperity and the adoption of some facets of Greek culture. At Monte Iato, another Greek-influenced temple was built during this period. At Segesta, an indigenous city in the western area of the island, the sixth century was a time of rapid aggrandizement and expansion. During this period the elite indigenous families began to take control of centralized institutions in their cities, while also collecting revenues and directing labour. The strong commercial and cultural contacts that the Segestan elite had with the Hellenic world are further underlined by the vast amount of Greek pottery (with some 2,300 shards with Greek writing) that has been found in the city. Yet at other indigenous settlements Greek cultural influence seems to have been strictly limited. At Monte Polizzo, in the rugged interior of western Sicily, a settlement sprang up that at its height was home to up to 1,000 people. Here, while there is some evidence of Greek influence in domestic architecture and pottery styles, this is strictly limited in scope (Morris et al. 2001, 2002, 2003; De Angelis 2003, 107–10). However, the adoption of particular aspects of Phoenician or Greek culture varied markedly from one indigenous community to another (Hodos 2006, 89–157).

150
Pausanias 10.11.3–4. Diodorus (5.9) makes no mention of the Phoenician–Elymian force, but relates that the Cnidian colonists had got themselves involved in an internecine conflict between the Segestans and Selinuntines. Krings (1998, 1—32) points to a number of elements in both texts that suggest doubt as to whether this episode really was one of the starting points for tensions between Phoenician/Punic and Greek populations. However, despite the usefulness of many of these qualifications, they do not prove that Pausanias’ account of a joint Phoenician–Elymian force is incorrect.

151
De Angelis 2003, 128–45.

152
Rocco 1970, 27–33.

153
For archaeological evidence of Carthaginian–Etruscan trade see Macintosh-Turfa 1975. Although only limited amounts of Punic material have been found in Etruscan contexts, it appears that even in the seventh century BC Carthage was supplying luxury goods to Etruria. Etruscan
bucchero —
a type of black pottery—was exported to Carthage in greater numbers. The importation of Etruscan bronze metals and utensils continued to the third century BC. There is little evidence for the scholarly tradition that it was the Greeks who acted as the middlemen in the trade of Etruscan and Carthaginian artefacts. It is also important to note that Etruria was not politically united. It seems clear that Carthage had diplomatic relations with at least the larger kingdoms of Tarquinii and Caere. For Tyrrhenian trade in the archaic period see Gras 1985.

154
Macintosh-Turfa 1975, 176–7.

155
It may have either served as a business card or as a label for commercial stock (Lancel 1995, 85–6; Macintosh-Turfa 1975, 177).

156
Heurgon 1966; Ferron 1972. Some scholars have argued that the dialect used on the third tablet is not Punic but Cypriot Phoenician, and that the architectural decoration in the temple itself also shows strong parallels with Phoenician Cyprus, so that the most likely scenario is that this was actually a grant of a place of worship in an already existing Etruscan temple for a community of Phoenician traders who had originally come from Cyprus (Gibson 1982, 152–3; Verzár 1980). For a summary of the academic debate surrounding the tablets see Amadasi Guzzo (1995, 670—73). However, with our limited knowledge of Phoenician or Punic, and given the close links that existed particularly between Carthage and Phoenician Cyprus, as well as the political alliances between Carthage and the Etruscan kingdoms in this period, the evidence still points towards Punic merchants, although it might very well be both.

157
Aristotle (
Pol
. 3.5.10–11) referred to ‘agreements about imports, and engagements that they will do each other no wrong and written articles of alliance’ between the Carthaginians and the Etruscans.

158
Aristotle
Rhet
. 1.12.18.

159
Herodotus 1.165–7. Krings’ (1998, 159–60) warning about viewing Alalia as part of a wider Mediterranean clash between Carthage and Greeks is, however, surely well founded.

160
Palmer 1997, 23–4. It has been plausibly suggested that this treaty may also have helped regulate Roman purchases of corn from the Punic sector of Sicily when Rome was faced with food shortages in the fifth century BC.

161
For Rome in the sixth century BC see Cornell 1995, 198–214.

162
We are once again indebted to the diligent sleuthing of Polybius, who found the bronze tablets detailing this treaty and two subsequent accords with Carthage in the Treasury of the Aediles at Rome (3.22.3). Polybius even complained of the difficulty of understanding such archaic Latin (3.22–3). For a cogent study of the treaties between Carthage and Rome see Serrati 2006.

163
Polybius 3.22.

164
Cornell 1995, 215–41.

1
Dion 1977, 3–82; Malkin 1998, 156–257.

2
Malkin 1998, 156–77; 2002.

3
Particularly in regard to the murder of their leaders. This was true of the southern Italian towns of Croton and Locris (Jourdain-Annequin 1989, 280–81). To spare embarrassment on either side, this was usually explained as being a terrible accident in which the victim had been killed by a mistake while trying to restrain a father-in-law or some other relative who was intent on fighting Heracles or stealing his cattle.

4
Jourdain-Annequin 1989, 311. It was said that the Celts were descended from Heracles after he had slept with the daughter of the king of Galicia and produced a son variously called Galates, Keltus or Kelta, and it was also claimed that he had sired a number of children in Spain and Gaul who had gone on to be kings of various regions there. Such was the popularity of Heracles across Italy that one first-century-BC Greek historian of early Rome wrote, ‘In many other places also in Italy precincts are dedicated to this god [Heracles] and altars erected to him, both in cities and along the highways; and one could scarcely find any place in Italy in which the god is not honoured’ (Dionysius 1.40.6).

5
Jourdain-Annequin 1992, 35; Malkin 1994, 207.

6
Fabre 1981, 274–95.

7
Malkin 2005, 238–9; 2002, 157–8.

8
Jourdain-Annequin 1989, 273–4.

9
In fact a version of the Geryon story certainly existed in Greece by the eighth and seventh centuries BC. Heracles and Geryon both appear in the work of the eighth-century-BC Greek poet Hesiod (
Theogony
279.979), and by the seventh century BC a version of the tale was well known enough for vase painters on the island of Samos to use it as a subject. Geryon is portrayed on pottery and texts in a number of different terrifying forms. Stesichorus described him as winged, with six hands and six feet (Stesichorus,
Geryoneis
Fr. S87). Apollodorus (2.107) describes him as having ‘the bodies of three men joined into one at the belly, but splitting into three again from the flanks and thighs down’.

10
Malkin 1994, 210.

11
For a detailed account of the development of the Heraclean Way, see Knapp 1986. For Heracles as an ever-evolving phenomenon in the West see Fabre 1981, 274–95; Jourdain-Annequin 1989, 221–300.

12
Dionysius 1.35.2–3; Diodorus 4.22.6, 23.1; Pausanias 3.16.4–5. For the links between Stesichorus and Heracles’ Sicilian jaunt, see Malkin 1994, 206–11. The travels of Heracles in Sicily reflected the myriad different experiences and challenges faced by the Greeks who settled on that island. Some scholars even think that the stories of Heracles in Sicily probably contain distant memories of the Bronze Age, when Mycenaean incomers clashed with the local population (Jourdain-Annequin 1989, 282–97). Many of the local leaders whom Heracles fought with could be local indigenous gods. For other possible links between the route of Heracles and the Bronze Age see Martin 1979, who points out that Heracles’ journey through mid and southern Italy mirrors the supposed migration route of the Sicels to the island of Sicily.

13
Herodotus 5.43; Diodorus 4.23.2–3; Pausanias 4.36.3.

14
Malkin 1994, 207–8.

15
Herodotus 5.42.

16
Malkin 1994, 192–203; Krings 1998, 189–95.

17
Herodotus 5.43–6; Diodorus 4.23; Pausanias 3.16. 4–5; Krings 1998, 161–215.

18
Malkin 1994, 212. Krings (1998, 202–4) expresses doubts about any self-conscious links between the two expeditions.

19
Krings 1998, 93–160.

20
Malkin 1994, 181–7.

21
Ibid., 186–7. In this case reality self-consciously followed legend (Diodorus 4.17.4–5; Pliny
NH
5.35). Fifth-century Cyrenean coinage shows Heracles with a Hesperid maiden. Others would argue that in fact the garden of the Hesperides was located much further west, around the mountains of Mauritania. Heracles was also said to have founded a city called Hecatompylon, which had gone on to achieve great success and prosperity until the Carthaginians captured it (Diodorus 4.18.1–4).

22
Asheri 1988, 755.

23
De Angelis (2003, 135–6) thinks that the temple could be a temple of Apollo. For other connections between Motya and Selinus there is the wonderful tufa statue of two lions bringing down a bull at Motya. Some scholars have speculated that it may have formed part of the decoration for the gates of the fortifications. Stylistically it bears such a close resemblance to the metope of the goddess Artemis and Acteon on the famous Temple E at Selinus that many have thought that they must have been created by the same craftsmen.

24
Moscati 1986, 57–8. Their popularity was such that these figurines were soon being manufactured in large numbers in Sardinia and North Africa.

25
Acquaro 1988, 17; Moscati 1986, 51, for the two sarcophagi found at Cannita near the city of Solus and thought to have been made locally sometime in the sixth or fifth century BC. At Cannita a seated goddess flanked by sphinxes was also discovered. Thought to date to the sixth century BC, it too displays clear Greek stylistic influence.

26
Moscati 1986, 72.

27
For Punic attitudes to the nude form see Maes 1989, 22. This interpretation would certainly fit much better with what we definitely know about the statue, namely that it was found in a Punic city. For a discussion of some of the lively scholarly debate surrounding the Motya ephebe, see Lancel 1995, 322–5.

28
Herodotus 2.44.

29
Ibid. Although no archaeological evidence has been found for the Phoenician occupation of the temple of Heracles on Thasos, other Greek authors state that the worship of the hero/god on the island had Phoenician precedents. Indeed, a later Greek travel writer, Pausanias, suggests that the Thasians openly alluded to their own and Heracles’ Phoenician origins: ‘The Thasians who are Phoenicians by descent, and sailed from Tyre and from Phoenicia generally . . . dedicated at Olympia a Heracles, the pedestal as well as the image being of bronze. The height of the image is ten cubits and he holds a club in his right hand and a bow in his left. They told me that they used to worship the same Heracles as the Tyrians but that afterwards, when they were included among the Greeks, they adopted the worship of Heracles the son of Amphitryon’ (5.25.12). Heracles was not the only Greek deity claimed to have had Near Eastern precedents. Pausanias (1.14.6–7) alleged that the worship of Aphrodite was started by the Assyrians, the Paphians of Cyprus and the Phoenicians. Pausanias, an apparently open-minded man, was well aware of the close links between Greek and Phoenician religion (e.g. 7.23.7–8).

30
Pausanias 7.5.5–8. There was a certainly a strong sense of the duality of Heracles/Melqart in later periods. The third-century-AD Greek writer Philostratus (
Apollon
. 2.33.2) wrote about a gold shield which Heracles had lost while campaigning in India, which ‘shows that it was the Egyptian rather than Theban Heracles that reached Gadeira and was the surveyor of the earth’.